Largest comprehensive study places Iraq civilian death toll at 150,000

You're confusing the issue. We were talking about vendettas and genocide, not an uprising against an occupier.

Actually, we're talking about both those things.

According to the Nuremberg trials, an belligerent nation is responsible for all of the consequences of their aggression, both direct and indirect.

Shifty fucker. You think you're gonna get away with lumping all "Iraqis killing Iraqis" into one category? The "life saving" intent of the invasion was to save them from the murderous side of the Hussein government, and that was more or less successful, was it not? You can't detract from that accomplishment by substituting the death toll racked up between religious sects. They are wholly seperate topics.

It makes a difference in who you blame.

This is some seriously warped thinking, in my opinion. I don't see how anyone can reach the conclusion that the sectarian violence is a consequence of the invasion, rather than a consequence of those sects choosing to attack each other. That's like saying it's the fault of the cop who took off my leg irons when I stand up and kick you in the head. Civilized human being should not need to be dominated under threat of torture and agonizing death just to prevent them from murdering each other.

One might also say that that's a very warped analogy for what has happened in Iraq. But as long as you follow the script about the invasion having been an effort to liberate that country rather than dominate it, it's inevitable.

A lesson from history:

When the Allies invaded France, a lot of innocent civilians were killed. The Americans were rather, shall we say, "wholesale" in their use of force to deal with the occupiers. More French people were killed by Americans in liberating France than by the German occupying forces, if I am not mistaken.

The Americans are to blame for those deaths. I don't really see how they could have been avoided, with the technology of the time, other than by leaving France in the hands of the Germans, but there is still no getting around the fact that the Americans killed huge amounts of innocent civilians in liberating the country.

Once the country was liberated, there were a lot of people killed by French people, taking advantage of the ensuing anarchy. In Paris, in particular, there were more deaths during the short period of anarchy that followed the liberation than there had been during the occupation.

The point of the history lesson, and its application to Iraq, is that the Americans (and other Allies, including the French forces under de Gaulle) were not responsible for the deaths that followed the liberation. And those deaths did not constitute a reason for saying that the liberation was not, after all, justified.

Now, there is plenty of room for discussion about whether the occupation of France by the Germans was equivalent to the reign of terror in Iraq under Saddam, but the killing of locals by other locals after the overthrow of the dictatorial regimes are similar. The only reason there are significantly more of them in Iraq is that the country does not have a history of democracy on which it can build a stable society rapidly. It is more like France at the time of the French Revolution. (Which lead to years of anarchy, civil war, the Terror, and plenty of other horrors.)

The bottom line is that civilian deaths resulting from the American forces liberating the country are a totally separate issue from civilian deaths resulting from internal strife in Iraq. Those who lump the two together are simply resorting to intellectual laziness and/or dishonesty because it suits their propaganda purposes.

So it all traces back to the invasion of Kuwait.

I knew that already.

Whereas it doesn't at all suit your purposes to abdicate responsibility.

So Saddam killing his own people was ok then, right?

Yes. Yes, it was. That's entirely what I meant.

Love to see any source material on that.

What was provided before as source material didn't include it at all.

I'm sure that was just an oversight.

Since it's not my motive, I can't decide why those who say they went to war because they wanted to stop Hussein from killing Iraqis wanted to do so. My best guess was that they wanted to do so in order for those Iraqis to live; and beyond that, because safe Iraqis and eventually free Iraqis are a first step towards freedom and liberty in the ME. If that guess is correct, then those Iraqis being slaughtered by a different group should count as failure. If the ulterior motive was different -- e.g., let's frustrate Hussein because we don't like him, his subjects and all other consequences be damned -- then the topics are indeed separate.

I refuse to justify the invasion, and I don't accept "saving the Iraqis" as the true motivation behind it. That said...

If I invade your home to save you from the person who was holding you hostage, and I succeed, but then later on you're murdered by a stranger on the street because you weren't locked away or just slip in the bathtub and break your neck because you were no longer tied up and prevented from bathing, my success at killing your captor is still valid.

If you have killed several of my family members in order to save me, and justified that by saying there would be less deaths in the future, and then set free the two other criminals that were being held in my cellar, who proceed to kill more people than the hostage taker ever threatened, then I'd say you have mostly failed. Your intention to frustrate the hostage taker succeeded, as I said above about Saddam. But you didn't help me one bit.

So freeing you from oppression is a failure, and of no value at all, if that freedom must be purchased in blood and I can't guarantee you a safe, rosy future if you don't intervene on your own behalf?

Here's the flaw, and the sneaky attempt to use it to blame the United States for the invasion of Kuwait.

A nation is not responsible for the activities of the elements that were held in check by the oppressive authoritarian nature of the regime it deposed that are unleashed by the vacuum that follows in its wake. The original triggering act of the regime that led to its downfall is still the causal factor.

Everything else is just so much domino effect. In that regard, henryhill's Nuremburg quote is spot on, but he isn't taking it back far enough.

If you intend to free me from oppression, and instead move me directly and knowingly from one oppressor to another, then your intention to free me of oppression has failed, yes. We're not talking about some unrelated future accident that costs me my freedom; we're talking about an inevitable immediate consequence of your action.

I take it you think Yugoslavia should never have broken apart?

We're not talking about responsibility, but about success or failure. If the US intended to save Iraqi lives, but in fact more Iraqis died than without US intervention, then that plan failed.

If you are attacked tomorrow by some madman, and fight for your life, and are overpowered and die, then that will be the madman's responsibility, but that doesn't change the fact that your fight for your life failed.

That doesn't wash either. If the Confederacy managed to win the war for their independence, that would be a success, even if their territory and economy was left in a shambles. Success is rarely easy, and often it isn't immediately fulfulling or rewarding. Sometimes you have to build it. Success isn't an event...it's a task.

Europe was an utter shambles after WW2. Look at it now (insert joke here).

Yes, but if the Confederacy won the war for their independence only to immediately give up their independence, or if they went to war for a stronger economy and won only to find their economy in shambles, then that would have been a failure. If the Iraq war was fought in order to save Iraqi lives, and it instead has lead to more Iraqis being killed, then that is a failure.

If you intend to achieve X, and don't achieve X, then you have failed to achieve X. That is called failure. And while I expect you to at this, I'd be grateful if the more coherent posters could refrain from trying to marathon that simple fact.

No. If I set out to free you from one oppressor, and in the end you are free of that oppressor, the effort was a success regardless of anything else that happens.

We're not talking about some inevitable force of nature or immutable law of physics, here. The only reason one resulted in the other is the Iraqis themselves making it so. There is no reason at all why they couldn't have chosen to take advantage of the situation to make their country a better place.

How do you know what X is? If X is to depose Saddam, X was wildly successful.

And again, what about Yugoslavia?

See what you did there? I repeat again, if your only intention was to make sure that Saddam and specifically Sadam is out of power, then removing Saddam spells success (and then you can leave now). But if your goal is to have safe and free Iraqis, then dead and oppressed Iraqis are a failure.

Yes. That's exactly what I said, three times now, first in post #46. indeed.

I really hate to bring this up, but hostilities never really ceased from 1991.